Editor’s Note:The following story was written by a student in the Urban Youth International Journalism Program in partnership with Imagine Englewood If, a youth services organization based in that South Side neighborhood:

Elsie Begay didn’t know her floor was killing her, because it was made of uranium waste. Uranium is a dangerous element that is radioactive and naturally occurs in soil in Utah and New Mexico, as we learned at an event at the University of Chicago in October 2010.

Like many Navajo, Begay didn’t know that uranium was in her backyard and that the radioactivity in her home was higher than it is supposed to be because of the uranium.